items tagged with Todd Schwartz

Director Chris Causer plays up the baser parts of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest in the District Theatre’s latest production, taking the debauchery of Bryan Tank’s Trinculo, a coxcomb of a servant, and Ed Villarreal’s Stephano, a drunken butler, to their limits. (And sometimes mine.) The scenes involving the two men bickering, and their leading around of Todd Schwartz's crazy-ish castaway Caliban – a native to the island that serves as the play's setting – drew large laughs from Friday’s audience, and broke up the serious tone of the rest of the tale.

There may be some of you who hear the title King Lear and, knowing only of the play’s reputation as the mack daddy of all Shakespeare tragedies, immediately presume that any evening production of the piece will last well into the next morning. Allow me, then, to quell your fears: Saturday’s Genesius Guild staging of the Bard’s opus began promptly at eight o’clock, and after the night’s presentation had concluded, I was back in my car by 10:55.